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Deeply Problematic Newsletter: October 18, 2022

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Deeply Problematic Newsletter: October 18, 2022

Laith Marouf redux; Brock U’s anti-oppressive stuffie; married to a gender cultist; (equine) fake news at CBC; Vancouver’s problematic BIPOC mayor; Halloween tips from Ontario school boards; and more

Jonathan Kay
Oct 19, 2022
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Deeply Problematic Newsletter: October 18, 2022

jonkay.substack.com

Canadian media shocked—shocked!—by depth of Laith Marouf fiasco

By now, most readers will be aware of the scandal surrounding Laith Marouf—the Beirut-resident Syrian-Canadian antisemite who milked the CRTC and Heritage Canada’s “anti-racism” program to the total tune of over half a million dollars, all while making grotesque public pronouncements about Jews, French-Canadians, and Americans. I published a full run-down on the scandal at Quillette back in late August.

One of Laith Marouf’s many charming Twitter selfies, this one Tweeted under the caption, “At the Lincoln Memorial, telling him what I think of his shitty colony.”

L’affaire Marouf is obviously an embarrassment for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, whose vaunted “Anti-Racism Action Program” has been exposed as an incompetently administered slush fund: As is now being reported, everyone on up to the Prime Minister himself knew that Marouf’s corporate alter-ego remained on the government payroll for a full month before his government contract was severed. But the claim that Trudeau didn’t act on the Marouf disclosures in timely fashion can equally be applied to the media itself—including those same journalists who are now busily roasting Trudeau for his inaction.

Twitter avatar for @RobertFife
Robert Fife @RobertFife
PM’s office knew of derogatory tweets a month before contract was cancelled theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…
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11:00 AM ∙ Oct 18, 2022
90Likes28Retweets

I am referring specifically to the week-long period in early August when Marouf’s story was going viral on social media and in independent outlets, yet was shunned by the Ottawa press gallery. And even when the dam did break on August 19, all we initially got was a Canadian Press story structured around an upbeat description of Hussen “taking action” and “looking closely at the situation.” The thing read more like an exercise in Liberal damage control than an independent journalistic account. As I wrote in Quillette two months ago:

[Telecommunications consultant Mark] Goldberg has been publicly ringing alarm bells over [Marouf] since April, and raised the issue directly with Liberal MP Anthony Housefather [in July]. Housefather responded on July 19, telling Goldberg that the issue had been flagged to [Ahmed Hussen, Trudeau’s Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion] and his team, and that Hussen “will get back to me.” Yet it was only a month later, on August 21, once I’d been signal-boosting Goldberg’s research for a week, that anyone in government deigned to acknowledged that they’d effectively put a lifelong Jew-hater on the government’s anti-racism payroll. And even then, Hussen declined to include Marouf’s name in his initial statement.

Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
astounding—even by the low standards set by all the various other grifters, hysterics, & haters paid out by Ottawa's various "anti-racism" slush funds: The same guy ranting about how Jews are "bags of feces" was hired by @CdnHeritage to train Cdn broadcasters in "anti-racism"...
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Twitter avatar for @Mark_Goldberg
Mark Goldberg @Mark_Goldberg
@jonkay It gets better - He was suspended from Twitter as @LaithMarouf but re-emerged with the new moniker. He gets paid by @CdnHeritage (our tax dollars) under an anti-racism funding program: https://t.co/KFcvCbOR7C #CDNpoli
9:51 PM ∙ Aug 12, 2022
970Likes482Retweets

I really doubt that anyone in Trudeau’s government will pay any kind of price for this. But at the very least, perhaps the scandal will discourage the Liberals from continuing to shovel out cash in the name of “anti-racism.”


Married to a born-again gender cultist

This week, I published a review of 18 Months, Shannon Thrace’s outstanding new book about her 14-year marriage to a formerly loving man who abruptly began self-identifying as a stunningly narcissistic woman. It’s a sad story in the way that all tales of collapsing marriages are sad. But there’s also an additionally maddening element, which is tied to the current ideological climate: “Jamie” continually weaponizes his gender dysphoria in a way that allows him to endlessly play victim, excuse selfish behaviour, and gaslight Shannon into thinking that she’s the unreasonable one.

Twitter avatar for @Quillette
Quillette @Quillette
Once a Man, Never a Woman | @jonkay
quillette.comOnce a Man, Never a WomanIn an extraordinary new book, Shannon Thrace describes her disintegrating marriage to a man consumed by narcissism and gender dysphoria.
10:20 PM ∙ Oct 16, 2022
131Likes30Retweets

Here’s an excerpt from my review:

Eventually, Jamie remakes not only his appearance, but also his past. He announces that he’d known he was female-spirited since the age of four. An oft-told story about a childhood brush with an abusive Boy Scout field-trip chaperone is rewritten to the effect that “it happened because I was seen as a girl.” Following an airport security search that’s conducted respectfully by well-trained staff, Jamie starts claiming he was transphobically harassed.

Jamie also rewrites his sex life, now claiming that his gender identity has nothing to do with sexual appetites. Unable to bite her tongue at this whopper, Shannon reminds Jamie of his requests to be demeaned as a “tranny” during sex, his inability to perform sexually unless he presents as a woman with a vagina while Shannon pretends to be a man with a penis, and, especially, his penchant for trans-themed porn—to which Jamie replies, without a hint of irony, “I was trying to find people like myself represented in the media.”

Lies, distortions, and selective memory are features of many disintegrating relationships, of course. But the style of conflict that Shannon describes seems uniquely toxic, since gender theory allows Jamie to cynically escalate even the most mundane disagreement into preposterous accusations of transphobic bigotry. And if that trick doesn’t work, he simply flees Shannon’s company altogether in a great flourish of tears, on the claim that her words are making him feel “unsafe.” As anyone who’s followed this issue on Twitter might have predicted, Jamie sometimes plays the suicidal-ideation card as well.

All of this gaslighting works on Shannon—at least for a while—because she has no one to talk with candidly about her pain. “You tell me you’re sad. I tell you I’m sad, too,” she writes (using “you” as a stand-in for Jamie). “[But] everyone considers your sadness an important civil rights issue, [while] no one gives a shit about mine.”

You can read the rest over at Quillette.


Brock University has convened a research team to name a stuffed animal

From Brock News: “A new research project is underway to name Brock’s Spirit Bear, meant to help further efforts of decolonization and reconciliation.” To be clear, this is not a real bear, but an ordinary stuffed animal. Here’s a picture:

I need scarcely add that the university’s Acting Vice-Provost for Indigenous Engagement, Robyn Bourgeois, is at the centre of things here. She even gets to hold the stuffed animal during public ceremonies!

Twitter avatar for @brockhumanities
Brock Humanities @brockhumanities
Did you spot Spirit Bear, Entiohahathé’te, at convocation celebrations this week? Spirit Bear is a symbolic and encouraging reminder of further efforts of decolonization and reconciliation at the University and beyond. Read more in Brock News.
brocku.caSpirit Bear joins Brock’s Convocation processionAlong with hundreds of graduates and graduands attending ceremonies at Brock this week, the University’s Spirit Bear, Entiohahathé’te, was also visiting the Convocation stage for the first time. Acting Vice-Provost, Indigenous Engagement Robyn Bourgeois and Brock’s Spirit ...
5:07 PM ∙ Oct 14, 2022
7Likes4Retweets

If you recognize Bourgeois’ name, it’s because she’s been the star of several tragicomic scandals at Brock, which I’ve reported on here, here, and here. Because she’s an Indigenous academic who’s made herself Brock’s garment-render-in-chief on the reconciliation file, however, she seems to be untouchable: I’ve been told by a prof at Brock that her “Acting” vice-provost status will likely soon turn into a permanent appointment.

She’s now making $157K per year, about $50K more than when she got as a mere professor. Not to mention all the selfies with the stuffie.


Fake news at the CBC—this time on four legs

Over the last few years, the CBC has created a slew of new journalistic shows that cater to black, Indigenous, multicultural, and LGBT audiences. Which is fine, of course. What is not so fine is that many of these brands have an explicitly activist mandate, which rather casts doubt on their ability to serve up objective reporting. To take one example: the logo of CBC’s Being Black in Canada project, conceived in 2020, a few weeks after the murder of George Floyd, is a bunch of raised fists.

Twitter avatar for @CBC
CBC @CBC
The Being Black in Canada project is a CBC-wide initiative highlighting stories of the black experience. Check out the collection at cbc.ca/beingblackinca…
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8:00 PM ∙ Jul 4, 2020
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Then there’s Unreserved, the CBC’s “radio space for Indigenous voices—our cousins, our aunties, our elders, our heroes…Together, we learn and unlearn, laugh and become gentler in all our relations.” It’s a show that showcases the beliefs and lore of Indigenous communities. Again, that’s fine—except to such extent that those beliefs and lore prove to be untrue. Like this week, for instance.

On October 15, Unreserved published a story about the Lac La Croix Indian Pony, also known as the Ojibwe horse, a small North American pony breed that became beloved by Indigenous communities. According to the CBC headline, the Ojibwe horse “lived around [the] Great Lakes long before European contact.” The article informs us that “DNA testing shows that they are a separate breed from the horses introduced to North America by Europeans, according to the Ojibwe Horse Society,” and that they were hunted by cruel Europeans who found them to be a “nuissance.”

Great story, but most of it isn’t true.

Horses did roam much of North America for about 4-million years, but they were completely annihilated about 10,000 years ago, likely because the ancestors of today’s Indigenous peoples killed them off (though it should be said that climate factors are also thought to have had an impact). Spanish invaders brought European horses over in the 15th-century, a bunch of them eventually escaped, and they spread northward throughout the American wilds. The genetics of North American horse populations have been studied closely by scientists, with one research team concluding that the Ojibwe horse is likely a cross between a (Spanish-descended) Mustang and descendants of “draft breeds such as the Belgian, Clydesdale, and Percheron.” The claim that the Ojibwe horse (or any horse) lived near the Great Lakes “long before European contact,” on the other hand, is flat out wrong.

Twitter avatar for @TerryGlavin
Terry Glavin 格立文 @TerryGlavin
The "Ojibwe Spirit Horse" is the Lac La Croix pony. If this breed was really a survivor of the post-Pleistocene extinctions it would overturn all we know about North America's ecological history. Like finding a living mammoth, or sabre-tooth tiger. A lovely story, wrecked:
Twitter avatar for @CBCNews
CBC News @CBCNews
Meet some of the people trying to revitalize an endangered horse breed that roamed Canada long before European contact. https://t.co/bzpudA7nZ9
3:34 PM ∙ Oct 17, 2022
126Likes23Retweets

All of this was pointed out to the CBC days ago, but no correction has yet been issued. And if you read the whole article, it’s easy to see why they’re hesitant to act. The idea that these ponies are indigenous to (pre-European-contact) North America isn’t an incidental grace note to the article: It’s at the heart of the piece, which sentimentally presents the horses as kindred Indigenous spirits, targeted and brutalized by the same evil European invaders who brutalized Indigenous people. To admit that these horses actually originate with Europeans themselves kills the whole human-horse-solidarity undertone of the story. To correct this article would basically be to retract it.

Personally, I don’t care whether some people (Indigenous or otherwise) choose to believe, as a matter of faith, in the existence of pre-European Ojibwe horses. It’s a harmless fantasy. But CBC journalists aren’t supposed to trade in matters of faith and pseudoscience. They’re supposed to be giving us news.

According to CBC News Editor-in-Chief Brodie Fenlon, in fact, the CBC’s “high journalistic standards obligate us to acknowledge and correct any errors we make in our work. We do so with full transparency.” But in this case, I’m not holding my breath. It seems that the Canadian media has a very hard time fact-checking fashionable-but-false claims related to the Indigenous file. And this is but one more example to add to the list.


Vancouver wokesters slam new BIPOC mayor as wrong kind of BIPOC

In Vancouver’s October 15 municipal election, voters tossed out a privileged central-casting male WASP named Kennedy Stewart in favour of a sensible-seeming Chinese-Canadian political newcomer named Ken Sim. Great news, right? Out with the oppressive whiteness and in with the BIPOC-itude!

Well if that’s what you think, then you don’t understand intersectional anti-oppression. Here’s our friend @DaniAtomicus to explain:

Twitter avatar for @DaniAtomicus
AntifascionistAHHH 👻 @DaniAtomicus
White people are not the only people who uphold white supremacy. An Asian person at the helm of colonial structures means nothing if they just reinforce the status quo. Just like a Black police chief did nothing to change Toronto. The plot is LOST if we think this helps us.
4:40 PM ∙ Oct 16, 2022
341Likes53Retweets

The back story here is that Stewart, though whiter than white, is an absolutely down-the-line dogmatic hashtag progressive (not to mention environmental protestor), while Sim ran on a centrist campaign that included pushing police to actually enforce the law in Vancouver’s increasingly lawless high-crime neighbourhoods. (I know—crazy, right?) In west-coast progressive Neverland, that makes Sim one of those fascistic Whiteness Quislings who “uphold[s] white supremacy” and “colonial structures.”

Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
1. Progressives: We need to elect BIPOC leaders 2. Chinese-Canadian candidate gets elected Vancouver mayor, beating a privileged ultra-woke male WASP named Kennedy Stewart 3. Reaction: Oh no! The "billionaire" is corrupting our democracy! Let's get rid of elections
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Twitter avatar for @geoffberner
Geoff Berner @geoffberner
In the #VancouverVotes election, we on the left asked, "But surely, people can't simply *buy* an election in Vancouver?" and the answer tonight, so clearly, was: "Yes. Yes they can. They just did." #Billionaire
1:38 PM ∙ Oct 17, 2022
139Likes22Retweets

This has become a recurrent pattern in Canadian politics. In the Waterloo Region District School Board trustee election, for instance, the focus of local social-justice cadres’ ire has been the region’s only black school trustee, a guy named Mike Ramsay. Their hero is Ramsay’s (extremely white) nemesis, Scott Piatkowski. Jonathan Bradley of the Western Standard has written up part of that saga here.

p.s. Vancouver is a “police state” now. Who knew?

Twitter avatar for @ryansudds
ryan sudds @ryansudds
Vancouver is now a police state. Please send help.
5:45 AM ∙ Oct 16, 2022
333Likes45Retweets

p.p.s. The real losers? Asian mixed race queer women who charge $5,000 to help you find your “queer strength,” of course:

Twitter avatar for @Votechriskj
Chris Kemp-Jackson @Votechriskj
He can expect to be accused of being one of the dreaded multi-racial white supremacists. Also he can expect to be told he's "no longer Asian", a 'token', a 'banana', etc. This is all SOP for progressives when a POC doesn't parrot their narrative (i.e. thinks for themselves).
Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
Vancouver has elected its first non-white mayor, a sensible seeming guy named Ken Sim who wants to help the police adress the city's festering drug and crime problems. Naturally, progressives are outraged. https://t.co/ia6x74dvgM https://t.co/QwEfLut1lj
6:24 PM ∙ Oct 16, 2022
78Likes14Retweets

The Freedom Convoy and its fallout

The latest Quillette podcast, published last week, features my interview with journalist Andrew Lawton. We talk about his new Sutherland House book, The Freedom Convoy: The Inside Story of Three Weeks that Shook the World. I enjoyed the book, and our conversation as well.


Halloween: A time when children joyously demonstrate that they are “inclusive of all stakeholders”

Happy Halloween, kids! But remember: Before settling on your costume, don’t forget to stare in the mirror, think about anti-racism, and “reflect” on a set of six essay questions (depicted above) provided by Ontario’s Durham District School Board:

Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
Good news! Equity & Inclusive Education officials at Ontario’s @DDSBSchools school board are *permitting* Halloween costumes…provided the child can "look in the mirror" while engaging in a 6-part self-reflection process pertaining to stereotypes, religion, history, ableism, etc.
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1:39 PM ∙ Oct 15, 2022
379Likes104Retweets

Elsewhere in Ontario, the Halton District School Board wants kids to know that they should definitely not be wearing oversized fake breasts as part of their costumes. That kind of “gender expression” is reserved for male shop teachers.

Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
folks at @HaltonDSB getting worried that someone might have fun on Halloween. (This is the Ontario school board defending the "gender expression" rights of Prof. Hentai Boobs.) Here's today's HDSB mass mail-out about costumes tied to (ahem!) "current socially trending incidents"
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2:47 PM ∙ Oct 14, 2022
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Oh, and in related news from yet another Ontario school board, Crazy Hair Day is now officially racist.

Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board @kprschools in Ontario (where else?) has published its October Equity, Diversity and Inclusion newsletter. Apparently, "Crazy Hair Day" is now racist because .... smore.com/wb3m9
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1:14 AM ∙ Oct 11, 2022
188Likes51Retweets

By now, there are too many woke-school-board-gone-amok stories in Ontario to properly track. And I know a fair number of conservatives and centrists who think that the upcoming October 24 school-board elections will be a good chance to clean house. But I’m pessimistic about that for a few reasons. Firstly, when it comes to school board elections, voter information tends to be low, with many people just picking the name they recognize—and that’s usually the incumbent, or the only person who bothered knocking on their door during the campaign. Moreover, everyone from local activists to Ben & Jerry’s are doing the best to smear any kind of school-board reform campaign as a mask for white supremacy.

Twitter avatar for @kassad_ahmed
Ahmed Kassad @kassad_ahmed
One white trustee @cindyw_watson one black trustee @_MikeRamsay one Portuguese candidate @CrisBairosFern and an Egyptian (me). What a diverse group! We apparently share the same right-wing, homophobic views. And we're racist!
Twitter avatar for @selamdebs
Selam Debs @selamdebs
Folks have been asking me:There are people running with racist, homophobic & right-wing views for School Board of Trustee. Candidates w/ far-right views & agendas are: -Cindy Watson -Mike Ramsay -Ahmed Kassad -Cristina Bairos Fernandes Share + Organize‼️ https://t.co/tKJX6tb9vy
8:33 PM ∙ Oct 7, 2022
237Likes37Retweets

The media has also roused itself to defend beleaguered ultra-progressives—as in the Waterloo Region, where the Globe & Mail just ran a love letter to incumbent education director jeewan chanicka (sic), a guy who (and I am not making this up) “spells his name with lower-case letters because he identifies with his Polynesian Indigenous spirituality and says that he doesn’t give more importance to himself than his surroundings, including animals, bodies of water and trees.” At his Toronto school-board gig, the guy made over $170K, which is considerably more than is earned by “animals, bodies of water and trees.” But I’m sure he has a good explanation.

Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
Meet the education director at @wrdsb
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Twitter avatar for @calphonso
Caroline Alphonso @calphonso
Why a Waterloo, Ont., school board has emerged as a battleground for ideological politics https://t.co/edp1UcrELZ
10:43 PM ∙ Oct 16, 2022
166Likes43Retweets

On the other hand, it might be a blessing in disguise if reformers have to wait another election cycle to turf the Scott P./jeewan c. crowd. The school boards are now full of fed up dissidents and moles, who regularly send me and other journalists materials detailing the extent to which in-house social-justice extremists have taken over school-board policy. Having Scott and Jeewan—sorry, I mean jeewan—flounder around under close public scrutiny for another few years won’t be good for schoolkids. But it will go a long way toward permanently discrediting their movement.

Twitter avatar for @SueAnnLevy
Sue-Ann Levy @SueAnnLevy
I’m gobsmacked, although I shouldn’t be, at the one-sidedness of this article. Chanicka is a divisive drama queen. @VotePiatkowski is a self serving autocrat. As someone who has followed the board for 10 mos. the writer should be ashamed of this. @carolynburjoski @DavidPasko_OCT
Twitter avatar for @globeandmail
The Globe and Mail @globeandmail
Why a Waterloo, Ont., school board has emerged as a battleground for ideological politics https://t.co/9hloOR7Wvn
10:38 PM ∙ Oct 15, 2022
110Likes19Retweets

Oh, and one more kicker: this mass mailing from Ottawa’s school board. Not creepy at all, right?

Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
This is a mass mailing from the @OCDSB (*not* private email correspondence) trying to recruit K-6 kids into "rainbow clubs."
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8:12 PM ∙ Oct 5, 2022
350Likes186Retweets

Greatest. Land Acknowledgement. Ever.

Like all great specimens of the genre, it’s basically one long sanctimonious brag, reeking of privilege, masquerading as humility.

Also in the same category, this guy:


Thoughts on The Cleve

Final note: I have two Substacks. This is one of them. The other one, Let’s get Board, is dedicated to board gaming. And if that’s your thing, you’re not going to want to miss my review of ASLOK 2022 in Cleveland!

Twitter avatar for @jonkay
Jonathan Kay @jonkay
On my “Let’s Get Board” boardgaming/disc-golf substack (not to be confused with my culture-war-themed “Deeply Problematic” substack) I’ve published a few reflections on my week at ASLOK in Cleveland
letsgetsboard.substack.comThoughts on ASL Oktoberfest 2022 in Cleveland: Time for a new ASLOK format… and hotel?Mini Tournaments at ASLOK should be on a 36-hour cycle Another ASLOK has come and gone. I’m now back from Cleveland after five fun days of gaming at the Sheraton Cleveland Airport Four Points hotel. And despite some of the complaints suggestions for improvement
4:38 AM ∙ Oct 11, 2022
8Likes2Retweets

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Deeply Problematic Newsletter: October 18, 2022

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3 Comments
Marian
Oct 30, 2022

I would be OK with land acknowledgments if people said, “We recognize that we are on the unceded territories of ____, and we have no intention of ever giving them back or of compensating ____ in any way other than this acknowledgement.”

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Gronch
Writes Gronch’s Substack
Oct 20, 2022

Lol. I had to take some stupid Social Justice course with Farha Shariff for my Ed degree a few years ago. She is insufferable, but manipulates 19 year olds into activism.

Needless to say, my degree sits unused.

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